18/08 2026 AD/21/18 266312 NANDY (DO) In the High Court at Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side WPA/20966/2026 BARID BARAN SATPATHI VS THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL & ORS. Mr. Arunava Pati, Advocate Mr. Amitabha Bhattacharyya, Advocate Mr. Sasthi Charan Dhara, Advocate ……for the Petitioner Mr. Lokenath Chatterjee, Advocate Ms. Mary Datta, Advocate Ms. Sneha Chatterjee, Advocate ……for the State 1. Affidavit of service as filed be kept with the record. 2. The petitioner is aggrieved that after having served for 9 years and 10 months, he has not been given his pensionary benefits as there is a shortfall of two months from the mandated term of 10 years of service, required to be eligible for terminal benefits. 3. The petitioner had approached the West Bengal Administrative Tribunal, which had disposed of the application by directing the concerned authority to consider the case of the petitioner. 4. Pursuant to such direction, the Principal Secretary, Department of Home, Government of West Bengal, considered and rejected the prayer of the petitioner for condonation of the shortfall of service by an order dated 21.05.2025. 5. It is this order of rejection which has been assailed in this writ-petition. 6. The decision of this Hon’ble Court in WPST/20/2024 (Tapan Kumar Mondal Vs. The State of West Bengal & Ors.) is clear and unequivocal that Rule 36 of the West Bengal Services (Death-cum-Retirement P a g e | 2 Benefit) Rules, 1971, empowers the government to condone a deficiency of six months in the qualifying service of a government servant. The decision of the Division Bench has made it clear that the government is at liberty to impose whatever conditions it deems fit when it condones such deficiency in service up to a period of six months. 7. Relying on this decision in WPST/20/2024, the Principal Secretary, Department of Home, has proceeded to reject the prayer of the petitioner for condoning the shortfall of two months in service. 8. It is clear that the ratio of the decision in WPST/20/2024 has been completely misconstrued by the concerned authority. 9. The Division Bench has clearly held that the authority is empowered to condone the deficiency with appropriate conditions which it may think fit. These conditions are to be imposed, if at all, by the authority and not by the Court. This does not in any manner imply that the authority cannot condone the deficiency in the shortfall or that the authority has to refuse such condonation. 10. Relying on the decision of Tapan Kumar Mondal (supra), the order dated 21.05.2025 cannot be sustained. The order is hereby set aside. 11. The Principal Secretary, Department of Home, is directed to revisit the issue without being influenced by the earlier findings in the impugned order, which has now been set aside, within a period of eight weeks from the date of communication of this order. 12. With the afore-stated direction, the writ-petition is disposed of. No order as to costs. P a g e | 3 13. All parties to act on a server copy of this order, duly downloaded from the official website of this Hon’ble Court. (Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, J.)